The present invention relates to security over a network and accessing systems, and more particularly to a method and system for autonomic security configuration of resources forming a solution, such as a business solution or the like.
To support operations, an organization or enterprise may have data processing systems with a variety of diverse products and applications from different vendors. A product or application may be referred to herein as a resource. A resource may be either an internal application or an external business partner resource or the like. A service provider can provide one or more resources. In addition to individual resources, an enterprise or organization may need to maintain business solutions. A business solution may be an ensemble of deployable resources to address a specific business problem or perform a specific operation.
Another set of resources may be those that provide security services, such as authentication, authorization, identity management, non-repudiation and the similar services. Examples of such resources may include Web proxy servers, Web servers, application servers, products that provide access control and similar devices or systems.
Each resource may have its own method and technology to configure security. The method may be complex and the mechanics of configuring the security may change from one release to another. Accordingly, keeping track of the different configuration methods and technologies and mastering the skills to configure security for each resource can be burdensome. Even more challenging may be to ensure that the security configured for the various resources that form a business solution work in a coherent way without conflicts and that the configuration defined for each resource does not change unintentionally in such a way that causes security inconsistency within the solution over time for some reason, such as manual updates by an administrator, a new release, or version of software.